Re: request help with using octava

[Søren Hauberg]

tor, 07 02 2008 kl. 15:24 +0100, skrev Jelle de Jong:
> Hello everybody,
Hi :-)

> I have been using and developing linux for 3 years and am an experienced
> user. I am following some basic mathematical classes on my university.
> In this collage I have to use software to calculate and analyse
> functions. The software that is used is called Derive:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_computer_algebra_system
This seems to be a program for symbolic computations, whereas Octave is
for numerical computations. You might want to look at Maxima which
possibly could be closer to what you're looking for
(http://maxima.sourceforge.net/).

> For a real FLOSS user this is not an option, so I went trying out all
> the mathematical tools for GNU/Linux. I think octave is the program that
>    should be able to do all the calculations and visualisations on the
> functions I use. However after spending a day working and trying I cant
> get my functions to plot and to calculate on them (differentiations /
> Integration / Compare / Solve).
I think you need to be more specific about what you want to do, and what
you have already tried. But remember that Octave is for numerical work,
and as such can't actually differentiate or integrate functions. All
Octave can do is approximate the derivatives, and integrals.

Søren